Its the Teachers, stupid........

[MARIS61]

I love it when you strut your ignorance proudly, for all to see.

The rest of your post is invalid. Do you really think Earth is an isolated system?

Neither you nor maxiep seems up to the debate, throwing childish insults but offering nothing of any substance in rebuttal of the facts I have posted.

Try eating fish. They say it's food for the brain.

 

[blazerboy30]

Neither you nor maxiep seems up to the debate, throwing childish insults but offering nothing of any substance in rebuttal of the facts I have posted.

Try eating fish. They say it's food for the brain.

Please explain to me how Earth is an isolated system. If you want to make the claim that the sum of "tangibles" is fixed, you have to show how Earth is an isolated system.

 

[mobes23]

My mom is a retired teacher and it was amazing how often (99.9% or more of the time) the absolute worst teachers were the union big wigs. The best teachers were focused on teaching students. You could always rely on the fact that crappiest were going to be all about the union.

Forcing schools to retain teachers based on tenure is just one of the bad things that comes of it. Really, who cares about keeping the best teachers -- we're all much better off having someone who's been behind the desk longer. yeesh.

 

[MARIS61]

Please explain to me how Earth is an isolated system. If you want to make the claim that the sum of "tangibles" is fixed, you have to show how Earth is an isolated system.

I need clarification. Isolated from what? Are you suggesting we have economic trade with other civilizations on other planets?

 

[blazerboy30]

I need clarification. Isolated from what? Are you suggesting we have economic trade with other civilizations on other planets?

You're the one claiming everything "tangible" on earth is fixed in quantity. I'm saying that is a false assumption, which makes the rest of your argument invalid. Energy is a "tangible". That is not a fixed quantity on Earth.

 

[maxiep]

Neither you nor maxiep seems up to the debate, throwing childish insults but offering nothing of any substance in rebuttal of the facts I have posted.

Try eating fish. They say it's food for the brain.

Do you care to show me where I involved myself with your idiocy in this thread? Get over me; I'm not into you.

 

[MARIS61]

Do you care to show me where I involved myself with your idiocy in this thread? Get over me; I'm not into you.

My apologies, I meant to say Denny Crane.

 

[MARIS61]

You're the one claiming everything "tangible" on earth is fixed in quantity. I'm saying that is a false assumption, which makes the rest of your argument invalid. Energy is a "tangible". That is not a fixed quantity on Earth.

Yes, energy is fixed, in the sense that to produce it resources must be consumed. Man has yet to figure out how to make something from nothing, but let me know if you do.

Your making an unsupportable and fictional statement in no way affects the validity of my fact-supported position.

I say position" rather than "argument" since it has yet to be challenged by facts.

 

[blazerboy30]

Yes, energy is fixed, in the sense that to produce it resources must be consumed. Man has yet to figure out how to make something from nothing, but let me know if you do.

Your making an unsupportable and fictional statement in no way affects the validity of my fact-supported position.

I say position" rather than "argument" since it has yet to be challenged by facts.

Look out your window. See that burning, bright ball of light? That's called the sun. Feel how it heats things up? That is called energy. Still think that the amount of energy on Earth is fixed, and we have an isolated system?

LOL at your "fact-supported position".

 

[Denny Crane]

Let's say we used trees as money. Cut one down, buy dinner with it. Grow as many as you need and you have an unending supply.

I mean, this is just one trivial example. BB30's energy from the sun is another.

Yet the assertion that wealth must be based upon tangible things is also rather silly. Some things, even nearly identical, have very different values. Like a piece of paper that says $1 on it and a very similar one that says $10 on it.

Our money isn't based upon anything tangible. It's little more than data on a bunch of hard disks, backed simply by what a rather free market (between nations) is willing to trade for that currency.

 

[MARIS61]

Look out your window. See that burning, bright ball of light? That's called the sun. Feel how it heats things up? That is called energy. Still think that the amount of energy on Earth is fixed, and we have an isolated system?

LOL at your "fact-supported position".

It arrives at a fairly constant, measurable and predictable rate. It is certainly not infinite, and in fact has been proven to be burning out and slowly dying off.

 

[MARIS61]

Let's say we used trees as money. Cut one down, buy dinner with it. Grow as many as you need and you have an unending supply.

I mean, this is just one trivial example. BB30's energy from the sun is another.

Yet the assertion that wealth must be based upon tangible things is also rather silly. Some things, even nearly identical, have very different values. Like a piece of paper that says $1 on it and a very similar one that says $10 on it.

Our money isn't based upon anything tangible. It's little more than data on a bunch of hard disks, backed simply by what a rather free market (between nations) is willing to trade for that currency.

Neither bill is wealth, both are in fact worth less than the day they were printed. (Google the word "inflation" if this confuses you). Paper money is merely a weak IOU that hopefully can be traded for something of value. If PA converted all his wealth into paper money, and somehow nobody had him committed to an insane asylum, he would risk losing it all in what could be a matter of a few days (Google "Great Depression").

As for trees, they drain minerals from the soil and if harvested rather than left to decay, the soil dies and trees can no longer be grown. As for your pipe dream about replanting for an endless supply, see ABM's clock to see how well (not) that works in reality. Click on environment and compare the forest lost, forest replanted, forest remaining, and desertification counts.

http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf

 

[santeesioux]

And whoever blamed the unions has it right. There are studies out there (I'll try to find them at some point) that show that younger teachers make more learning happen than their older, tenured counterparts. That's not to say that there aren't terrific tenured teachers out there, but if you know you can't be fired unless you hit someone pretty much, why improve?

This is so true, when i was in high school a couple of years ago the older teachers just didn't give a fuck while the young ones actually tried to be enthusiastic about teaching, it rubs off on the students. Hell, my history teacher who is retired now would literally just record stuff off of the history channel and write out multiple choice questions based off of it, that was literally 80 percent of the class.

 

[44Thrilla]

This is so true, when i was in high school a couple of years ago the older teachers just didn't give a fuck while the young ones actually tried to be enthusiastic about teaching, it rubs off on the students. Hell, my history teacher who is retired now would literally just record stuff off of the history channel and write out multiple choice questions based off of it, that was literally 80 percent of the class.

That's actually better than2 of the history teachers I had. One of them handed out "dittos" that he wrote by hand 20 years before and kept making copies, and just read them out load to us. The other just had the whole class take turns reading the textbook out loud, all class long.

 

[Denny Crane]

Neither bill is wealth, both are in fact worth less than the day they were printed. (Google the word "inflation" if this confuses you). Paper money is merely a weak IOU that hopefully can be traded for something of value. If PA converted all his wealth into paper money, and somehow nobody had him committed to an insane asylum, he would risk losing it all in what could be a matter of a few days (Google "Great Depression").

As for trees, they drain minerals from the soil and if harvested rather than left to decay, the soil dies and trees can no longer be grown. As for your pipe dream about replanting for an endless supply, see ABM's clock to see how well (not) that works in reality. Click on environment and compare the forest lost, forest replanted, forest remaining, and desertification counts.

http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf

So let's examine this latest bit.

Inflation destroys the value of $1 bills and $10 bills, but doesn't affect PA's wealth?

If trees directly were currency, there'd be a different kind of stewardship for preserving the environment needed to grow them.

Face it, you're simply wrong that there is some fixed sized amount of wealth, no matter how it's distributed. Just as you are wrong about PA's wealth being 1/1000th of all the wealth in the nation.

About PA's wealth. Assuming he's worth $18B that Wikipedia says he is. Look at your world clock and see what a massive (NOT!) dent it would make in the federal debt if we were to TAKE it from him and give it to the govt. Heck, it would barely cover NASA's budget for a year, and that's 1/1000th of the federal budget.

LOL

I don't think you could take all of PA's wealth, Gates' wealth, all the wealth of the kings of those arab countries, etc., and make much of a dent.

 

[blazerboy30]

It arrives at a fairly constant, measurable and predictable rate. It is certainly not infinite, and in fact has been proven to be burning out and slowly dying off.

HAHA. This is great. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

This is so far over your head you're going to hurt yourself.

 

[Denny Crane]

HAHA. This is great. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

This is so far over your head you're going to hurt yourself.

To be fair, the sun's energy is finite. It'll run out of fuel (hydrogen) in about 5 billion years.

I think Maris is really confused about the difference between "rare" and "finite."

 

[blazerboy30]

To be fair, the sun's energy is finite. It'll run out of fuel (hydrogen) in about 5 billion years.

I think Maris is really confused about the difference between "rare" and "finite."

No, that isn't the point at all.

The fact that Earth can receive energy from the sun makes Earth a non-isolated system. This means that "tangibles" on Earth are NOT constant. The time-frame over which that is true is irrelevant.

 

[Denny Crane]

No, that isn't the point at all.

The fact that Earth can receive energy from the sun makes Earth a non-isolated system. This means that "tangibles" on Earth are NOT constant. The time-frame over which that is true is irrelevant.

It is a non-isolated system. A meteor made of gold could hit the earth tomorrow.

 

[blazerboy30]

It is a non-isolated system. A meteor made of gold could hit the earth tomorrow.

Are you arguing with me? That is what I'm saying. But as opposed to having to wait for a meteor to hit, we are guaranteed that Earth will be receiving huge amounts of energy from the sun. How we use that energy is what can affect our total amount of assets on Earth.

 

[rocketeer]

Interesting study. The LA Teacher's union called to Boycott the LA Times because of this article....

the article kinda sucks though. at least the part i read. you can't base everything off of how good people do on standardized tests. then the "best" teachers are just the ones who teach exactly what's going to be on the test instead of just trying to help the students learn in general. and obviously it encourages teachers helping kids cheat on the test and things like that.

there definitely needs to be better evaluation for teachers and better training in an attempt to make all teachers better, but basing everything on standardized test results is not the way to do it.

 

[Denny Crane]

the article kinda sucks though. at least the part i read. you can't base everything off of how good people do on standardized tests. then the "best" teachers are just the ones who teach exactly what's going to be on the test instead of just trying to help the students learn in general. and obviously it encourages teachers helping kids cheat on the test and things like that.

there definitely needs to be better evaluation for teachers and better training in an attempt to make all teachers better, but basing everything on standardized test results is not the way to do it.

Have you seen studies that show that studying for tests actually makes students better (learn more)?

 

[maxiep]

I took an entire class based on passing the final. I studied the test (highly legal, technical language) as much as the material itself. The point was to even begin to study the test, you had to master the material.

Thanks, Roman. You're an a-hole, but a hell of a prof.

 

[rocketeer]

Have you seen studies that show that studying for tests actually makes students better (learn more)?

it makes them learn what's going to be on the test.

 

[Denny Crane]

it makes them learn what's going to be on the test.

Right, but what exactly is wrong with that?

 

[blazerboy30]

it makes them learn what's going to be on the test.

If we can really get to that point, we're doing well. Then it only takes a smaller group of qualified people to create a test that will make the students learn the right way.

 

[Denny Crane]

Another way to look at it.

If there's math on the test, don't the students have to learn math to answer the questions? Or if there's literature questions, don't they need to know the literature?

 

[rocketeer]

Right, but what exactly is wrong with that?

knowing the information that's going to be on the tests is good but it's not the only thing that's important. don't you think learning the correct processes behind doing things is much more important at a young age than memorizing some answers to questions that are very likely to be on the test?

and i wasn't really talking about studying for tests in general. obviously that's something that students are supposed to be doing. i'm talking about when teachers know the standardized test at the end of the year is what they're going to be evaluated on so all they worry about is teaching that specific test and don't focus on actual learning.

 

[rocketeer]

Another way to look at it.

If there's math on the test, don't the students have to learn math to answer the questions? Or if there's literature questions, don't they need to know the literature?

not exactly. standardized tests are going to be multiple choice. do you have to know the math to realize that the answer that is way different from the other answers is going to be wrong basically all of the time? there are tons of little "tricks" to be taught related to tests to improve scores that have literally nothing to do with knowing the information.

and as i said earlier, it encourages cheating and dishonesty from teachers as well.

 

[Denny Crane]

How did you learn 5x5 = 25?